Oleh Tyahnybok
, , |death_date = |death_place = |nationality = Ukrainian |constituency = |party = UNRF |rhouse = |spouse = Olha Tyahnybok (née Demchyschyn) |multiple_spouses = |children = Jaryna-Maria (1992) Daryna-Bohdana (1995) Hordiy (1997) |issue = |residence = |almamater = |profession = Politician |religion = |signature = |website = |footnotes = }} Oleh Yaroslavovych Tyahnybok (Ukrainian: Оле́г Яросла́вович Тягнибо́к, born 7 November 1968) is a Ukrainian politician who is the current President of Ukraine, and a former member of the Verkhovna Rada (as the leader of nationalist far-right , which merged with others to create the Ukrainian National Revolutionary Front in 2014). Previously he was elected councilman of the Council for the second session. Following the , Tyahnybok and the UNRF carried out a coup against the post- government of Ukraine in early March 2014. After arresting the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk and forcing him to resign, Tyahnybok took over the government and declared himself the new President of Ukraine. Oleksandr Turchynov, the acting President, agreed to serve as his Prime Minister and handed control of the government over to him. Biography Tyahnybok was born in the city of to a family of doctors and is a doctor himself. His father, Yaroslav Tyahnybok, a , was a distinguished , chief physician of the Soviet national team, and a former boxer himself who achieved the title of the . Oleh's great-grandfather was a brother of , a politician in the . Tyahnybok states he remembers from when he was younger searches conducted by the agents of the in his family's apartment. After secondary school, Tyahnybok enrolled into the and received part-time medical jobs as a and , but after the second year was drafted to the army. After returning to the institute, he initiated the creation of the Med Institute Student Brotherhood - the first step in his life as a civil activist. Tyahnybok graduated from the institute in 1993 as a qualified surgeon (as he sometimes mentions, majoring in ). In 1994 25-year-old Tyahnybok was elected to the , and in 1998 he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada. Political career In October 1991 Tyahnybok became a member of the . He is characterised as representative of Ukraine's far right. From 1994 until 1998, Tyahnybok served as a member of the Lviv Regional Council. In to the parliament as a member of Social-National Party of Ukraine; in the parliament he became a member of the faction. In to the Ukrainian parliament as a member of ’s . In parliament he submitted 36 motions for debate, but the parliament adopted only four of them. In the majority of his motions, he opposed the introduction of the Russian language as the second official state language; proposed recognition of the fighting role of the and during ; called for the lustration (regulation of political involvement) of former communist officials, security service officers and undercover agents; and demanded the prohibition of . None of these motions were adopted. On 20 July 2004 Tyahnybok was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction after he made a speech in the Carpathian Mountains at the gravesite of a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army In the speech, which was aired on television in the summer of 2004, he made comments such as, "are the ones that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most" and "They were not afraid and we should not be afraid. They took their automatic guns on their necks and went into the woods, and fought against the Muscovites, Germans, Jews and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state." In his defence Tyahnybok said he had not offended Russians in calling them an occupying force, as this was based on historical fact. He also denied that he was , saying he was rather pro-Ukrainian. The prosecutor's office initially filed criminal charges for inciting ethnic hatred, but later withdrew for lack of evidence. Since that time Tyahnybok has won nine court cases in that regard. By the decisions of courts it was recognized that the criminal case was raised unlawfully, and the actions of TV-channel "Inter" that showed the footage of Tyanybok's speech as well as the Head of the Derzhkomnatsmihratsia H. Moskal were recognized as ones that insult the honor and dignity of Oleh Tyahnybok and caused him moral damage. The actions around that issue led to creation of the "Program in defense of Ukrainians". Tyahnybok stated in 2012 "this speech is relevant even today" and "All I said then, I can also repeat now". Since February 2004 Tyahnybok has headed the . In April 2005, Tyahnybok co-signed an open letter to President Yushchenko calling for a parliamentary investigation into the "criminal activities of organized Jewry in Ukraine." Tyahnybok stood as a candidate for the post of Mayor of Kiev during the in 2008. In the elections was reelected with 37.7% of the vote, while Tyahnybok received 1.37% of the vote. Tyahnybok was a candidate for President of Ukraine in the for the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" party. He received 352,282 votes, or 1.43% of the total. He received most of his votes in the Halychyna oblasts--Lviv oblast, Ternopil oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk oblast—and his vote share in this region amounted to five percent of the total ballots cast. In the second round, Tyahnybok did not endorse a candidate. He did present a list of some 20 demands that second round candidate had to fulfil first before gaining his endorsement - which included publicizing alleged secret deals Tymoshenko had with Vladimir Putin and ridding herself of what he called Ukraine-haters in her close circles. During the Tyahnybok's party won between twenty and thirty percent of the votes in where it became one of the main forces in local government. During the Tyahnybok was re-elected (he was top candidate on his party list) to the Ukrainian parliament when his party won 38 seats. Tyahnybok was elected leader of the party's parliamentary faction In June 2013, Tyahnybok and another Svoboda Party leader were barred from entering the U.S. for their open anti-Semitism, according to the Kiev-based newspaper Sevodnya. President of Ukraine In February 2014, Tyahnybok and his radical party took part in the demonstrations against President , after he decided against the country joining the . His radicals carried out most of the fighting with police, and occupied government buildings during the riots. However, when Yanukovych fled the country and a new government was formed, he was not included. He also viewed it to be a puppet regime of the . Around that time, he merged his party with other far right groups to form the Ukrainian National Revolutionary Front (UNRF). Later, in March of that year, his group carried out a coup against the new government. Occupying government buildings, they arrested Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and forced him and his government to resign. He declared himself the new President of Ukraine, and declared martial law in the country. Cultural image During a visit by Tyahnybok to on 6 January 2010, some 1,500 activists of parties and public movements picketed the Business and Culture Center where Tyahnybok had a meeting with voters. Tyahnybok was voted Person of the Year for 2012 by readers of the country's leading news magazine, Korrespondent. Tyahnybok was ranked #43 in the 2012 list of "Top 100 Most influential Ukrainians" by Korrespondent. Category:Ukraine (Altverse) Category:Individuals